010310: Candice Breitz – The Scripted Life

Kunsthaus Bregenz Candice Breitz – The Scripted Life 06.02.10 – 11.04.10 Individuality and Mass The video and photo artist Candice Breitz investigates the identity and individuality of our mass society by utilizing narrative structures. Breitz, born 1974 in Johannesburg, became known in Austria with her collages Ghost (1994-96) and Rainbow (1996). Both works, which deal with South Africa’s new identity after the end of Apartheid were shown in the exhibition Inclusion: Exclusion in Graz 1996. While she used to apply the techniques of over-painting and photomontage, she now works with technically advanced photo cutting for the assemblage of moving photo collages. Today, she focuses the content of her video installations on the psychological phenomenon of the lookalike in mass culture. In addition, the artist and art historian tries to sound out the political connection in the network of pop culture. For Breitz, the contemporary globalized pop culture creates a construction for collective memories, for controlled communication, emotions or senses. Projections of a fan culture emerge, which trigger the desires for a life not lived. The medial images not only manipulate the public discussions, they also introduce the private life of each individual. Breitz is convinced that dream factories such as Hollywood or MTV primarily dominate our culture. Besides her well-known large format video installations such as Working Class hero (A Portrai of John Lennon, 2006), and Him and Her (1986 – 2008) new works from the series Factum (2009) are presented in Bregenz. The artist borrowed the names for her nearly identical twin pictures Factum 1 and Factum II (1957) from Robert Rauschenberg. While Rauschenberg’s pictures were involved with the dismantling of a myth of authenticity with abstract or expressive painting, Breitz attempts to question the concept of individuality in its supremacy - in conjunction with duplicating stereotypes. Identical twins, separated from one another, are interviewed and confronted with the exact same questions for hours on end. Breitz compressed the interviews and presents them on two adjacent terminals, resembling a double portrait. While the same background and the same clothing focuses on their similarities, their individual diversity is created by their gestures and their opinions. The two-part video installation New York, New York (2009) was produced especially for her solo presentation in Bregenz. She extends her favourite motif of the lookalike: the actors - five pairs of identical twins - play the same roles in identical stage sets, are dressed exactly alike, but are separated from one another. Matching parameters were developed for two different performances; the similarities and differences are only distinguishable through concentrated listening and watching. Andy Warhol’s famous duplicates of the icons “Elvis” and “Marilyn” are used as stage props – as an additional insinuation of Breitz’s artistic intention to encrypt a seeming individuality or The Scripted Life. By Romana Schuler Kunsthaus Bregenz, 6900 Bregenz, Karl Tizian Platz http://www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at

Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville

010310

Kunsthaus Bregenz
6900 Bregenz, Karl Tizian Platz
Tel: +43 5574 48 594-0, Fax: +43 5574 48 594-8
Email: kub@kunsthaus-bregenz.at
http://www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-So 10-18, Do 10-20 Uhr

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